Visual Search on Bing

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My latest discovery on Bing, Microsoft's search engine which
was first introduced in May, is visual search. It associates images with text,
which in a recent Microsoft study, showed that it helps people get the desired
content 40% more quickly.

This is a great tool, especially when you experience a
temporary memory lapse. Just the other
night I was trying to remember the name of a movie I want to see. I knew it featured Ben Affleck's wife and the
guy who wrote the British version of The Office. Knowing what the two of them looked like
wouldn't normally be a help, but with visual search it led me right to the information I
wanted. I went to the Movies in Theaters
tab and then looked through pictures of movies currently in theaters. Voila!
I found my movie - The Invention of Lying, starring Jennifer Garner and
Ricky Gervais.

Bing has many useful visual search categories, including
HDTVs, digital cameras, and cell phones - because let's face it, who can
remember all the different Blackberry names or TV models without a little
visual help. While right now Visual
Search is still in Beta, within the next few months you can expect to see a lot
more growth. The tool will be integrated
into travel and shopping, so if you find a bag in a store and want to check
competitive pricing, but forgot the name of the pocketbook, you can use this
resource.